The swaggering strokeplay of Jason Roy became a central feature of England's limited-overs cricket after their miserable display in the 2015 World Cup insisted that a more adventurous approach was essential. For Roy, a Surrey opener of dashing disposition, such a change of emphasis was ideal. His maiden ODI ton had come before the World Cup, against Pakistan in Dubai, but it was in 2016 under the leadership of Eoin Morgan, adamant that England must play free-spirited cricket, that Roy found his voice, making two ODI hundreds against Sri Lanka in England, the second of them - a career-best 162, the second highest ODI score made at the time by an England batsman - coming in front of his adoring home crowd at The Oval.

Born in South Africa, Roy came to the UK aged 10 and soon started to move through the system. He was a hugely successful schoolboy cricketer for Whitgift, and made his Surrey debut as a 17-year-old in 2008 during the Twenty20 Cup and his fielding talents were noticed by England, who used him as a sub later that summer against South Africa. It wasn't until 2010 that he broke into the first team again. He promptly thumped 101 off 57 balls against Kent at Beckenham, Surrey's first T20 hundred. Later in the summer he struck an unbeaten 76 from 65 balls against Leicestershire on Championship debut. England's selectors gave him a place on the Performance Programme tour to India before the England Lions tour to Sri Lanka in early 2012.

Roy's obvious ability in the shorter formats led to him twice winning T20 contracts in the Bangladesh Premier League but he struggled to build on a quietly impressive role in Surrey's 2011 promotion campaign, when he made his maiden first-class hundred. In 2013, he made two YB40 centuries - doubling his List A tally - but struggled badly in Championship cricket, scoring just 49 runs in seven innings.

It was in 2014 that Roy made the leap from a prodigiously talented but erratic young cricketer to a consistent match-winner. The transformation was particularly evident in the NatWest T20 Blast, where he struck 677 runs at 48.35 apiece - the highest tally in the competition. England's T20 competition had undeniably produced an exciting batsman of international quality. Roy's uncomplicated clean-striking became as much a feature of Friday nights at The Oval as the beer-snakes and streakers. With his breathtaking power down the ground and penchant for switch-hitting - not to mention the fact he was born in South Africa - he was frequently compared to Kevin Pietersen, not least by Pietersen himself. His brilliance did not achieve the same levels in the following two summers - how could it? - but a destructive hundred against Somerset in 2015, and against Kent the following year, was a reminder of his unfettered talent.

After working hard on pacing his innings in four-day cricket, Roy also blossomed in Championship cricket in 2014, hitting 1078 runs, the highest at the club, at an average of 50-plus without reigning in his destructiveness: his strike rate was still 84. He also averaged 47.65 in the Championship in a promotion year in 2015, his strike rate even higher.

By the summer's end, he was rewarded with a T20 international debut against India and in 2015 he became a fixture in England's limited-overs formats, building on a couple of promising 60s against Australia with a maiden ODI ton against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, an innings that was rarely fluent - and that was entirely overshadowed by Jos Buttler's dash to his own hundred in record time - but one that provided proof of a growing survival mentality.

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